Come As You Are
by Andreya Halms
Summary: Between 1981 and 1993, Remus Lupin contemplates life, and his life specifically, two times.


**A/N: As usual, this felt better in my brain.**

**Also, inspired by the Black Sabbath song Planet Caravan. This is not, I repeat **_**not**_**, a songfic, though a part of this work drew elements from what I personally believe to be one of the best psychedelic rock songs I've heard—which, admittedly, are like two or three, but bleh.**

**Any kind soul willing to beta this for me? No? Damn. –crawls under rock-**

**::**

**::**

Come as you are, as you were,  
As I want you to be  
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy.  
Take your time, hurry up  
The choice is yours, don't be late.  
Take a rest, as a friend, as an old memoria.  
Memoria. _[x3]_

Come dowsed in mud, soaked in bleach  
As I want you to be  
As a trend, as a friend, as an old memoria  
Memoria. _[x3]_

And I swear that I don't have a gun  
No I don't have a gun. _[x2]_

Memoria. _[x3]_

Memoria - and I don't have a gun.

And I swear that I don't have a gun  
No I don't have a gun _[x4]_

Memoria.

-Come As You Are, Nirvana

::

::

**1981**

His world literally tilts when wide, mad gray eyes lock with his own for a fraction of a second before the manically laughing man who is the love of his life is Apparated away the Magical Law Enforcement's rapid response team.

There is smoke and ash and the smell of charred flesh and blood in the air (and deep down inside it brings forth a tiny spark of hungry lust which is automatically smothered), the air is rent with the sound of Muggle police sirens, the asphalt under his feet is cracked and Londoners in varying stages of shock, horror, hysteria or curiosity are surrounding him – Well, not him per se, he is just ordinary old Remus Lupin, quiet, unassuming and offensively uninteresting, while a crater so deep that the sewer below can be seen, and the remains of thirteen human beings, have better attention-gathering skills than what he could have ever hoped to achieved.

Remus' legs are jelly and lead, his stomach strange and empty. He feels nauseous and dizzy, and staggers sideways. Someone grips his upper arm and helps him sit down, reassuring him with gentle words, and asks him if he's hurt. He mechanically thanks the woman and says something half-arsed about being quite alright, so she hesitantly moves away.

His world upright, he takes a shaky breath – a breath that he is sure will remain with him till the day he dies – and Disapparates without caring if he's seen or not; the whole lot there would be meticulously tracked down and Obliviated anyway. He has no set destination; he just needs to get as far away as he possibly can without coming back in a full circle.

_Crack._

He finds himself in front of Sirius and his flat.

_Crack._

The Potter's ruined home in Godric's Hollow.

_Crack._

Peter's cottage.

_Crack. Crack. Crack._

He splinches himself more than once – two toenails and half an earlobe– but he can't get himself to concentrate on not getting himself physically ripped apart because a torn body for a torn soul seems awfully poetic.

And he's always been a fan of good, mood-enhancing poetry.

::

::

**1983**

Lying on his back under the night sky somewhere in the Scottish Highlands nearly two years after he lost everything he thought he could ever care about, including himself, Remus contemplates life.

Or, more specifically, what life had been to him, what life is to him, and what he plans on letting life be to him.

_It wasn't supposed to be like this,_ he thinks dispassionately, he thinks bitterly. _Not like this._ Oh yes, the war _was_ supposed to end like all wars eventually did, and he was either supposed to die a hero's death, a Gryffindor's death, on the battlefield, fighting for those he loved, or he was supposed to grow old with Sirius, side by side, with something overly domestic like matching rocking chairs and dentures, with Peter and James and Lily and their children and grandchildren.

It was not supposed to be – like – _this._

He takes out a tiny drawstring pouch from the recesses of his threadbare overcoat and runs his fingers over the smooth velvet before tugging it open. It contains a powder which softly shimmers all the colours of the rainbow and more; there is enough to just pool into the hollow of his palm. Fairy Dust – actual, pure, unadulterated Fairy Dust – collected from virgin forests by Veela at the witch's hour on a cloudless full moon night is what it is, and it is very expensive, very illegal. It's hard to come by, but it's bought and sold by a lot of his kind, so all a werewolf has to do is keep his eyes and ears open and deal with dubious characters in dubious places.

Remus takes a pinch of the Dust with well practiced fingers, tips his head back, closes his eyes and inhales sharply. Most users prefer their Dust in potions because it is less harmful that way, but he finds that its psychedelic magic lasts longer his way, and he needs all the extra seconds he can get, what with his general state of unemployment and lack of money.

The effects are instantaneous. He lets out a sigh as a comfortable sort of numbness creeps in on him, slowly, deliciously, filling him up like gradually rising symphonic music, and surrealism drips over his senses in a thick, viscous sludge. Time slows down and world goes beautiful and hazy around the edges, with colours that are bright and vivid, yet soft and relaxing and lovely, and the sky – _oh_ – the sky is freedom, liberation, salvation, with stars that shine like merry, laughing eyes.

The cool black breeze sighs and silver moonlight falls down on him in tears as his body, his consciousness levitates, and he drifts off to the vast space that is the universe. He is so far away now, a traveller, a voyager, and the earth is a sapphire blaze below, a sapphire blaze that revolves and rotates and sails through the cosmos and goes on and on and on, and he too is a survivor who goes on and on and on and on—

_Hello, Moony_.

Sirius, all of seventeen, with his long hair dishevelled, Hogwarts shirt un-tucked, top buttons undone, tie loose, looking bright and content and thoroughly well-fucked, floats up beside him.

'Hello, Padfoot.'

_Took you long enough this time 'round, I thought you wouldn't come. I really missed you, you know?_

'Why'd you do it?'

_Why indeed, eh? Why don't you hazard a guess?_

Yes. Why indeed. Because Remus, for the life of him, cannot understand _why_ Sirius did it. What compelled him? What motivated him? The Sirius he knew – the Sirius he though he knew – was a loyal friend if nothing else. He had an explosive temper, but it was only reserved for those who threatened his family and friends, and he had made it clear on more occasion than one that those two were mutually inclusive because his friends _were_ his family. He was impulsive and rash and lived for the adventure his next breath had the potential of bringing, but he would never, ever do anything – except that one time in their sixth year – that would bring harm to innocent lives.

'Why'd you spare me? Or did you get caught before you could kill me too?'

_I love you._

'I don't.'

_You don't? _ Sirius' eyes dance like he's moments away from tipping into laughter because he knows something absolutely hilarious about Remus that Remus himself does not. _Really now?_

'I don't.'

Another one of the approximately two million questions Remus has is why he is the only person to be spared from Sirius' happy killing spree. James and Lily, okay, he can understand. He doesn't want to, but he does, what with the blasted prophesy, and Sirius being Voldemort's right hand man, trusted to the extent that he did not even have the Dark Mark, and James' apparent best friend and Harry's godfather. But Peter? Sirius had murdered Peter. Poor harmless Peter, devoted Peter, Peter who literally hero-worshipped the three of them, much to Remus' perpetual embarrassment. When Remus had appeared on the street, Sirius had looked directly at him, smiled with something resembling relief, and then had promptly gone and blown the street up.

Sirius had always been a little eccentric and had the energetic vivacity of youth, but had never had what could be called a seriously disturbed mind. So was it an act of mercy that he had not included Remus? Love? Or cold, calculated Black cruelty because there could have been nothing worse than Remus to _this_ particular life?

Frankly speaking, Remus has thought about killing himself more than once. What is life without love? Without friends and people to care about? Without point, without purpose? What is life when you don't have enough money for food and clothes and shelter, you are shunned by civilized society because of something you can't control, and your only high point is when you actually get high on something you can't afford?

_Okay, no, maybe not now,_ is what he thinks on the days he's feeling particularly shitty and weary and therefore suicidal. He needs to live. For Harry. Someone needs to tell him about his parents – not about James and Lily Potter, but the _people_ who had been his parents. About James' many ridiculous attempts to woo Lily. About the great friendship that had – had – been the Marauders'. About pranks and laughter and acceptance and kindness and caring and sacrifice. Harry needs someone who genuinely cares for him because that someone had been there during the first moments of his life as a fat, red, wrinkly and absolutely perfect thing, and not because he is the Boy Who Lived, or because he has been forcibly inflicted on them by Albus Dumbledore. Remus uses the word _inflicted_ because he's visited Little Whinging exactly three times since December 1981, and the gross negligence on the part of the Dursleys towards Harry has left him horrified. He understands why Dumbledore has done what he has done – probably something to do with blood magic and protection, although he has never asked outright – but that does not mean that he could barely stop himself from lifting the Disillusionment charm on himself and very politely asking Vernon and Petunia Dursley to expect a visit from a fully grown, very angry, very hungry werewolf next full moon. And he also has to apologise to Harry for having noticed the strange looks Sirius would often give him when they lived together and for having noticed how distant Sirius was growing, and putting it all down to stress instead of acting on his suspicions about Sirius being the spy.

_Really?_ Sirius asks, and a grin flashes across his face. His voice is of smoke and honey and it comes through to Remus in dreamy, leisurely waves that take their time to flow through him. _You said you'd love me forever, Moony._

'Fuck off, Black.'

They drift on, spiralling around each other as if they've slipped into a slow whirlpool, not really touching. And then Sirius gently pulls Remus forward by the shoulders and kisses him, tenderly yet wholly – a brush of lip against lip and the unhurried rub of wet tongue against tongue. Remus' arms gravitate and settle around Sirius' hips, and he pulls him closer. Their legs tangle and fingers touch and caress as they are caught in a slipstream and they go tumbling and spinning and spinning and tumbling with sensual laziness.

_See, that's the problem with you_, Sirius says, and licks a possessive strip up Remus' cheek. His lips brush against Remus' closed eyelid when he speaks again. _You think you don't love me, but actually, you do. It's really terribly cute and not at all emasculating, if you must know._

'Don't get too far on yourself,' Remus replies, undoing Sirius' red-and-gold tie and letting it slip away. 'There's nothing I hate in this world – my lycanthropy included – more than you.'

Sirius gives a bark of laughter, a precise, velvety _ha!_ that comes out somewhere from deep inside his throat – a handsome sound from a handsome young man – and he pushes Remus' shirt off his thin shoulders. _Oh please. Don't insult yourself _and_ me by lying to yourself _about_ me, alright? I know for a fact that I am a hard person to get over_. He laughs again as Remus kisses his bare throat, and Remus can feel his Adam's apple bob under his tongue. _Hard bordering on impossible, is what I know. And so do you, love._

::

::

**1994**

Ten years down the line, Remus has mellowed down considerably. He doesn't use any more because deliberately walking down the path of self-destruction and ghosts and hallucinations is a pathetic and sad way to lead his life, and honestly speaking, the saved money does make everything so much more easier. He has locked up all his hurt, pain, resentment, grief, confusion and love deep inside himself, and they only come to leave their mark on him once every lunar cycle. He maintains a calm and mild mannered front which occasionally borders on a kind of stubborn and cynical cheerfulness, where if someone slaps him – and who doesn't slap his kind? – he very politely puts his other cheek forward so that they can have another go, because after all, everybody has their own problems and frustrations, and if Fate has deigned him to be someone's outlet, then, well, so be it.

He is no longer the angry twenty-something young man from before. . .he is just mostly tired now.

Remus butters his toast as he reads Dumbledore's letter formally appointing him as Hogwarts' new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. He's read it every morning since he'd first got it, it's a ritual of sorts, and, as usual, he can't deny himself a grin. It will be absolutely brilliant – he pointedly ignores the not-brilliant aspects - to be back at the place he'd spent the best years of his life in, and he looks forward to meeting Harry, who, as he's delighted and somewhat nostalgic to learn, looks and flies like James but has his mother's eyes and personality.

An owl swoops in through the open window of the kitchen of his parents' old cottage. He pays it a few knuts and gives it half of one of his three sausages before untying the morning edition of the Daily Prophet – a luxury he's decided to splurge in now that he will soon have regular job with enough pay to get comfortably get a bachelor by.

Remus finds himself contemplating life again, and this time 'round, things actually do look pretty fine. The one more thing his life needs, he decides, is closure.

And so, for the first time in twelve years, he thinks about visiting Sirius in Azkaban. Not to make amends, oh no, never _that_, but to get answers he'd been too. . .emotional to get in his youth.

He tries not to think what the Dementors would have done to the man he'd grown from being a boy to adult with, and if Sirius would indeed be in a condition to hold a conversation, so he doesn't.

Remus glances at the picture of an unhealthy-looking, unshaven man with long, matted hair, hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and waxy skin stretched tightly over high cheekbones on the front page. There's something oddly familiar about the man.

The man in the picture stares right back at him and twists his thin, cracked lips to bare uneven, yellow teeth to give a condescending grin, which looks menacingly distorted when coupled with the dead eyes, and it's a bit too wide, which gives Remus the unnerving impression that he is about to go for his neck. Something clicks back to place and suddenly, suddenly Remus cannot breathe and there is no air in his lungs, because he remembers, he remembers smoke and ash and blood and betrayal and wild gray eyes and gleeful remorseless laughter jagged at the edges with murderous insanity.

He drops his toast and his eyes fly to the headline which, in big, sensationalist letters, warns the entire Wizarding world of Sirius Black, the first person to have ever escaped from the fortress that is Azkaban.


End file.
